As more teens and children get their hands on smartphones, the largest gamer demographic is getting younger.
Recent research published in the 2014 Deconstructing Mobile & Tablet Gaming Report has shown that mobile gaming has become highly prevalent in modern life, and over the last year, there has been a considerable drop in the average age of gamers in this category.
The report was created by EEDAR and showed that there are 142 million mobile gamers in North America.
The mobile gaming study also showed that this figure has increased by 111 over the last year. The average amount of money spent on mobile games over the last year was $32.65. In total, this generated an estimated $4.6 billion in revenue. The leading 6 percent of the spenders in this category are responsible for generating about half of all of that revenue. It should also be noted that almost half of all players of mobile games do not pay for that experience.
The average age of the players in the mobile gaming environment is currently 27.7 years old.
That represents a dramatic drop from the average age in 2013, which was seven years older. Among the primary reasons for this is that it is rapidly becoming more commonplace for adolescents, and even children, to own their own smartphones. This is the case because the cost of lower end devices is falling, making it more affordable for families to be able to equip their youngest members with mobile devices.
In the EEDAR report, the results of the examination of the market showed that casual mobile gamers are most likely to be on the younger side – with an average age of 26 years old – and are most likely to be female (70 percent). Among the core gamers over smartphones and tablets, however, the average age is slightly older than that – at 30 years old – and the players have a greater likelihood of being male (58 percent).
The survey was conducted with the participation of 3,500 active mobile gamers. Each of those individuals had taken part in mobile gaming within the three months prior to the study, using either their smartphones or tablet devices.
Newzoo credits the high mobile growth rate to “organic growth” for boosting the market in general and “cannibalistic growth”, which comes at the cost of other segments. Spending for massively multiplayer online games and online PC games is moving toward tablets and smartphones, while social, casual and handheld console gaming have weakened.